{"id":2367,"date":"2021-11-13T17:21:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T17:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2021-11-13T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T17:26:11","slug":"ftv-charlie-watts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2367","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Charlie Watts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Could it be that I am slipping?\u00a0 Scanning the<\/span> FTV<\/span><\/i> titles for the past ten months, I realized the entire year was about to pass without me writing about a drummer!\u00a0 How could this be?\u00a0 It isn\u2019t for lack of drummers out there to write about.\u00a0 It is more a case of working through a list of available topics, kind of like when the NFL draft occurs:\u00a0 their favorite tactic always revolves around a team taking \u2018the best available player on the draft board\u2019.\u00a0 So it goes when deciding on which <\/span>FTV <\/span><\/i>topic to cover next while considering subjects that have not been on the board recently.\u00a0 When Charlie Watts opted out of their upcoming tour for health reasons (which soon after took him off the planet permanently), it seemed only fitting to spend some time giving him his due.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Charlie Watts was a drummer who wasn\u2019t overly flashy when he played, but any garage band drummer coming up in the 1960s and 1970s could not help but be influenced by his style.\u00a0 If your band played Stones tunes, then you were going to be playing \u2018Charlie\u2019s way\u2019.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t copy Charlie\u2019s beat, the song(s) wouldn\u2019t sound Stonesy.\u00a0 The Stones first TV appearance was not on The Ed Sullivan Show, but on The Hollywood Palace hosted by one of Tinsel Town\u2019s finest, Dean Martin.\u00a0 The date was June 13, 1964 and the ever jockular Martin introduced the band with some snarky remarks implying a link between their long hair and juvenile delinquency.\u00a0 Their first Sullivan appearance would not take place until October 25, 1964.\u00a0 There are noticeable similarities in both of these performances.\u00a0 The four musicians arrayed across the front of stage left to right included Bill Wyman on bass, Brian Jones on harmonica (HP) and guitar (ES), Mick Jagger on vocals, and Keith Richards on guitar.\u00a0 Tucked in the back on a low drum riser (for Hollywood Palace) and a higher cylindrical one (on Sullivan\u2019s show) sat Charlie Watts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was difficult to see much of what Charlie was doing behind his kit because the cameras focused a good amount of time on the front four and, on the Sullivan show, the swooning girls whipped into a frenzy of adulation.\u00a0 Charlie, smartly dressed in coat and tie, displayed little emotion beyond a slight bobbing of his head as he kept time.\u00a0 Watts was the oldest member of the band, although he wasn\u2019t that much older.\u00a0 The front four just looked impossibly young compared to their time keeper.\u00a0 Born in University College Hospital in Bloomsbury on June 2, 1941, Charlie was a ripe old 23 when they first appeared on American TV.\u00a0 By contrast, Jagger was born in 1943 and Richards in 1944, but barely out of their teens when they broke in America..<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Charlie\u2019s love of music was forged early when he and neighbor Dave Green discovered a common love of jazz.\u00a0 A lifelong friendship began as they bonded over Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong and the like.\u00a0 When his family moved to Kingsbury, Watts expanded his interests.\u00a0 He showed a flair for art, music, and cricket in school, made clandestine visits to the Flamingo Club in London\u2019s Soho district, and bought a banjo (he removed the neck\u00a0 and used the body as a snare drum).\u00a0 At 14, his folks bought him a true drum kit and he honed his drumming skills playing along with his growing collection of jazz records.\u00a0 It took until 2009 for the duo to finally put their kind of music on vinyl.\u00a0 Watts and Green (on drums and bass, respectively) joined pianists Ben Waters and Axel Zwingenberger to record the <\/span>ABC&D of Boogie Woogie.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While he performed in a series of local bands, Watts attended Harrow Art School.\u00a0 Art school led to his first job as a graphic designer with the Charlie Daniels Studio ad agency.\u00a0 Charlie was 17 when he joined the Jo Jones All-Stars with whom his playing moved from trad jazz to rhythm and blues.\u00a0 Charlie kept himself busy at work and gigging at clubs along Soho\u2019s Archer Street where he gained another lifelong friend in drummer Ginger Baker.\u00a0 It was Baker who introduced Charlie to the founding father of British blues, Alexis Korner.\u00a0 Korner invited Watts to join his Blues Incorporated band, but Charlie had already taken a job in Denmark.\u00a0 Watts returned to London in February of 1962 where he joined Korner and company playing their regular Rhythm & Blues Nights at the Ealing Jazz Club.\u00a0 Now working at the ad agency of Charles, Hobson, and Grey, Charlie was kept busy hopping from his straight job to band gigs.\u00a0 The Ealing was the spot where Watts would make first contact with a young wanna be blues band looking for a drummer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the time of their first meeting with Watts, The Rolling Stones membership included Brian \u2018Elmo Lewis\u2019 Jones, Ian \u2018Stu\u2019 Stewart, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards.\u00a0 To become the band they wanted to be, they needed a drummer like Charlie Watts, but he wasn\u2019t interested.\u00a0 The economics of the situation did not favor Watts joining the upstarts;\u00a0 he was making good money with Blues Incorporated.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t charm him away from the Blues Incorporated gig either, so they made him an offer he couldn\u2019t refuse:\u00a0 five quid a week.\u00a0 The first Stones gig with Watts on board took place at the same Ealing Jazz Club on February 2, 1963.\u00a0 Bill Wyman had joined the band a month before Watts came on board.\u00a0 At first, Charlie stayed at the band\u2019s dive apartment, but only for a brief time.\u00a0 Richards, Jones, and Watts would spend their days steeped in blues records (Charlie says, \u201cBrian and Keith taught me about Jimmy Reed.\u201d) while Mick toddled off to his classes at the London School of Economics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The band was wrapping up a eight-month residency at the Crawdaddy Club when they came to the attention of their future management team of Andrew Loog Oldham and Eric Easton.\u00a0 Oldham immediately demoted Stewart to \u2018piano playing road manager\u2019 and Easton secured them a record deal with Decca Records.\u00a0 The Stones made their chart debut with a cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s <\/span>Come On<\/span><\/i> on June 7, 1963.\u00a0 Little did any of them realize how long a road they had just started down.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As the band\u2019s popularity soared, they scored eight No. 1 singles and eight top-five UK albums in six years.\u00a0 By 1969, The Stones were being introduced in America as \u2018the Greatest Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll Band in The World.\u201d\u00a0 Charlie confided later he wasn\u2019t so sure of this moniker:\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t believe it, really.\u00a0 What about Little Richard?\u00a0 Then you have Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino, Chuck Berry\u2019s studio band – there isn\u2019t a better rock\u2019n\u2019 roll band.\u00a0 That\u2019s where we got it from.\u00a0 <\/span>Roll Over Beethoven <\/span><\/i>by everybody else is a joke, really.\u00a0 We came close sometimes with <\/span>Little Queenie <\/span><\/i>or <\/span>Around And Around<\/span><\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 While his bandmates drugged for their own entertainment and mugged for the cameras for everyone else\u2019s, Charlie kept a low profile.\u00a0 He married his sculptor wife Ann Shepherd on October 14, 1964 and the couple remained together up until Charlie\u2019s death.\u00a0 They would have a daughter, Seraphina, who was born in 1968.\u00a0 The other Stones may have lived a wild and crazy touring life, but Charlie amused himself by sketching every bed he slept in on tour.\u00a0 He wrote and illustrated <\/span>Ode To A High Flying Bird<\/span><\/i> about one of his jazz idols, Charlie Parker.\u00a0 His art training also came in handy designing album sleeves for the Stones..<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Charlie Watts was the epitome of \u2018cool\u2019.\u00a0 He made it a point to be well dressed, answering the question, \u201cDo clothes maketh the man?\u201d by stating, \u201cNo, they don\u2019t, but they help make the man look great.\u00a0 Not everybody has it.\u00a0 Not many people are interested, for a start, and the general public doesn’t care any more, so it\u2019s all out the window, really.\u201d\u00a0 Even at a cricket match held on a hot and humid day, Watts could be seen sporting a Prince of Wales-checked suit:\u00a0 \u201cI should have turned up today in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.\u00a0 The thought of that is horrendous.\u201d\u00a0 In a 1986 interview, he described the previous twenty-five years of his career as, \u201cI worked five years, and spent twenty years hanging around.\u201c He lived a quiet but charmed life:\u00a0 Watts got to record with Howlin\u2019 Wolf in 1971, perform with Ian Stewart\u2019s Rocket 88, and release jazz albums with his own band.\u00a0 Life was good, until the Jagger \/ Richards feud played out in the 80s,\u00a0 keeping the band off the road.\u00a0 The down time led Charlie down his one long, dark, seven year path:\u00a0 \u201cI hit an all-time low in my personal life and in my relationship with Mick.\u00a0 I was mad on drink and drugs.\u00a0 I became a completely different person.\u00a0 Not a nice one.\u00a0 I nearly lost my wife, family, and everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During the middle section of this dark period, the cool and collected Charlie laid one on Mick\u2019s chin.\u00a0 Mick had called Watts\u2019 hotel room and asked, \u201cWhere\u2019s my drummer?\u201d Charlie arrived a few minutes later impeccably dressed, shaved and cologned to punch Jagger in the face.\u00a0 As an exclamation point, he added, \u201cDon\u2019t ever call me your drummer again.\u00a0 You\u2019re my (expletive deleted) singer.\u201d\u00a0 The lesson in \u2018respecting your bandmates\u2019 was learned and such fisticuffs between the drummer and HIS singer never reappeared.\u00a0 There were times during the golden age of MTV when Charlie couldn\u2019t hold back – his facial expression told the whole story.\u00a0 The look on his face seemed to emote how he felt about the whole MTV craze – The Stones had become a parody of a band.\u00a0 I am not kidding.\u00a0 Watch the video of them cavorting around in sailor suits for <\/span>It’s Only Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll But I Like It<\/span><\/i> – the smirk on Watt\u2019s face speaks volumes.\u00a0 These instances were no doubt small acts of insurrection on Charlie\u2019s part, but he was not dumb enough to walk away from his meal ticket.\u00a0 As silly as the Stones may have gotten in the MTV years (and they were not the worst offenders by any means), Charlie sucked it up and enjoyed the ride in his own way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That he was able to pull himself back from the brink of self destruction by kicking his heroin habit was a good thing.\u00a0 Doing so by self-medicating with alcohol was not.\u00a0 Oddly enough, it was his wardrobe that got him totally clean.\u00a0 Watts later confided, \u201cI stopped the drugs, but I drank rather heavily, and I ballooned a bit, and god, I couldn\u2019t get some of my trousers done up.\u00a0 That was it.\u00a0 I completely stopped everything.\u00a0 I lived on, as Keith always reminds me, nuts, peanuts, and sultanas.\u00a0 That is all I ate for months.\u00a0 I went from Dracula to a slightly bloated Dracula, to this emaciated, little thin thing.\u201d\u00a0 He stuck with his sartorial splendor to the end:\u00a0 \u201cOh yeah, a well-made suit you try to keep fitting you for thirty years is the incentive.\u00a0 I still wear clothes I bought thirty years ago.\u00a0 They cost so much money I refuse to let them go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Charlie Watts life wasn\u2019t just about The Rolling Stones and clothes, however.\u00a0 He loved to collect American Civil War memorabilia, follow cricket, purchase first edition books, and classic cars.\u00a0 He would have suits specially made to match the cars, like the 1937 Lagonda Rapide in which he would sit to enjoy the engine\u2019s purr.\u00a0 Owning one of these cars wasn\u2019t a big surprise (only 25 were ever made), but Charlie never drove any of his cars.\u00a0 He never learned to drive.\u00a0 He just liked to collect them like fine art.\u00a0 Watts’ other love when not on the road was spending time at his Arabian horse stud farm, Halsdon Arabians.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Every drummer develops little ticks in their style and Watts was no exception.\u00a0 These idiosyncrasies may come from the mind numbing habit of playing the same song hundreds of times or as a way to stave off boredom.\u00a0 Charlie went through several periods where he would pick up his right stick off the hi-hat beat when playing the snare drum off-beat with his left hand.\u00a0 Normally, the right hand pattern would be counted \u2018one-and two-and, three-and, four-and\u2019 but they way Watts would stick it, his left hand would play the snare on \u2018two\u2019 and \u2018four\u2019 but his right hand \u2018two\u2019 and \u2018four\u2019 on the hi-hat would be skipped.\u00a0 Perhaps non-drummers would not notice such a little thing, but it drove me crazy when I first noticed it.\u00a0 If one finds a clip of <\/span>Some Girls<\/span><\/i> from the 2009 film <\/span>Shine A Light, <\/span><\/i>this little tic in his drumming can be seen very clearly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Charlie\u2019s drumming tic bothered me less when my Knockdown guitarist Ray asked me during a\u00a0 break at a gig at the KI Sawyer NCO Club, \u201cWhy are you playing so many cymbal crashes on the off-beat?\u201d\u00a0 Apparently I would sometimes slip into a pattern where I would not hit cymbal accents on the beat.\u00a0 Instead of playing \u2018one-two-three-four \/ one-two-three-CRASH\u2019, I would play the last measure \u2018one-two-three-four and CRASH\u2019.\u00a0 The point was well taken and there were times when I would have to actually bear down and concentrate so I would stop doing it.\u00a0 Once Ray pointed out this little tic in my drumming, I self cured the little hiccup in my playing and Charlie\u2019s occasional habit didn\u2019t bother me any more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Beyond his self-inflicted health problems when he was drinking and drugging to excess, Watt\u2019s most serious health crisis came in the form of lung cancer in 2004.\u00a0 Fortunately, his cancer went into remission after a course of radiotherapy.\u00a0 There has been no indication his last health crisis (the one that would have kept him from touring) or his death on August 24, 2021 were related to the 2004 diagnosis.\u00a0 <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>Reviews Editor Ian Fortnam summed up the essential information in a nutshell:\u00a0 \u201cAnd that was Charlie Watts:\u00a0 an extraordinary talent;\u00a0 the ultimate rock\u2019n\u2019roll drummer;\u00a0 the quintessential English gentleman who provided the backbeat for all of our lives for the best part of six decades;\u00a0 but who never really understood what all the fuss was about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We will wrap things up here by borrowing a sampling of tributes from across the music world that accompanied the <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>tribute penned by Fortnam:\u00a0 <\/span>Bob Seger<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>His unforgettable rock solid backbeat will be remembered forever. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Sheryl Crow<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>A hero is gone.\u00a0 No Words.\u00a0 A huge gaping hole in the universe.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Thurston Moore<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>Bands can only be great bands if their drummer is truly great – Charlie Watts, you were essential to the language we all learned as rock\u2019n\u2019 roll.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Paul McCartney<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>I knew he was ill, but I didn\u2019t know he was this ill, so lots of love to his family and condolences to the Stones.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be a huge blow to them because Charlie was a rock, and a fantastic drummer.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 <\/span>Tony Iommi<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>So sorry to hear this very sad news,\u00a0 Charlie was such a nice guy and a major influence in the music business – he\u2019ll be sadly missed.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Glenn Hughes<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>Charlie was one of a kind.\u00a0 The perfect drummer for the Rolling Stones.\u00a0 His pocket is folklore, and what a lovely fellow he was. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Pete Townshend<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/span>Charlie was not a rock drummer, more of a jazz drummer, and that\u2019s why the Stones swung like the Basie band!\u00a0 Such a lovely man.<\/span><\/i> And finally, <\/span>Alice Cooper:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve no doubt the Stones will go on.\u00a0 My message to Charlie?\u00a0 Rest in Beat!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>From WOAS-FM, we can only add –<\/span> R.I.P Charlie Watts:\u00a0 June 2, 1941 – August 24, 2021<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Okay, they are lip-syncing in this TV clip from 1966, but this is still one of my favorite examples of Charlie Watts’ drumming, PAINT IT BLACK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Could it be that I am slipping?\u00a0 Scanning the FTV titles for the past ten months, I realized the entire year was about to pass without me writing about a drummer!\u00a0 How could this be?\u00a0 It isn\u2019t for lack of drummers out there to write about.\u00a0 It is more a case of working through a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2370,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}